Archive for the ‘holidays’ Tag
This may be the best Christmas morning I’ve ever had. My better-half with help from my nagging stayed in bed until ten o’clock. We left the bedroom only for calls from Mother Nature and to refill our coffee mugs. We laid there like two fat, dumb, and happy morons celebrating the fact that the holiday was over for us. It was lightly snowing at the time but by days end we had our traditional White Christmas. I think we could have stayed in that warm and toasty bed all day but my better-half had her engine running early and was getting a bit antsy. She forced me from the bed and the room which kind of “harshed my Christmas morning buzz” a bit. Dammit!
For most of the day we were on the phones, on the computers, or on the IPads wishing good cheer to the whole damn planet. She spent a few hours reviewing all of the photographs that she’d taken over the holiday (about 600), erasing the bad, and burning the good to CD’s for other family members. It was still a lazy and relaxing day, it was great.
It took me a little longer than I thought to clear the Christmas debris from the house because I was busy eating goodies left over from last night. I’ll tell you right now, it’s going to take me a few months to get rid of all this Christmas cheer that showed up just north of my belt buckle. We had a quiet dinner, just the two of us, where we devoured a rib roast that was to die for. Fat and sassy after the meal we repaired to the living room for movie night.
Here’s my take on the movies we watched. Katherine Heigl in ‘One for the Money’ wasn’t too shabby. She was supposed to be a bounty hunter which took a real stretch of my imagination to believe but then seeing her semi-nude made it almost worth the wait. I give it a C+ for story, B- for nudity.
Then we fired up the movie (using the term loosely) ‘Horrible Bosses’. It was well named because it was really horrible. How anyone convinced Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Anniston to even consider being in it was beyond me. Dumb, and Dumber meets Police Squad. I give it an F- for story and an A- for nudity when I got to see a little more of brunette Jen than ever before. Trust me, if anyone tries to give you a gift of that movie, give it back, and remove them from your list of friends. Just freaking awful.
The better-half was in bed early with a 4:00 am wakeup call looming. I found it necessary to stay up for a while longer and to kick Tiger Woods ass in an eighteen hole X-box tournament. It felt good to crawl into bed finally and to put another Christmas behind us.
Onward to New Years and 2013.
I’ve never been accused of being overly sentimental but on a number of occasions I’ve been told by friends and family members that I was anti-Santa and had no Christmas spirit. I never took those kinds of criticisms to heart because I know they weren’t always factual. Unless you’ve been in an intimate relationship with someone you just can”t honestly make those kind of assumptions or so I thought.
Since it’s the Christmas season and everyone is alleged to be happy and jolly I thought I would pass some of my happy and jolly along to the rest of you to explain those terrible but true accusations.
I was accused many years ago of being a Bah Humbug and a holiday hater. Unfortunately at that time I was. I worked during at that time for a national toy company and Christmas was considered our life blood, it was a freaking nightmare. We began planning for Christmas in early June every year and it was the constant drumbeat every effing day until the following January. It lasted until January because that was when all of the phony people returned the so-so gifts they were given because they sucked and they just wanted cash. I worked there for thirteen long, long, long, Christmas seasons.
Normal people spend approximately one month a year with the holidays constantly on their minds and almost all of them are exhausted in January and glad to have them over with for another year. So in my thirteen years with the Child World\/Children’s Palace chain I was blessed with effing Christmas cheer for a total of 104 months. For you math majors in the audience that equates to over a century of Christmases that I’ve been blessed with. Red and green ribbons, gifts, toys, pissed off customers, bratty little shits, drunken Santa’s, and a long stream of six day work weeks. You bet your ass I hated Christmas. My skin would actually crawl when I heard Silent Night or Deck the Freaking Halls.
I don’t remember most Februaries during that time because I was asleep. It took me until April to get back to normal just in time to begin preparations for the next Christmas. It was a Holly Jolly hell and I felt I was being punished for something awful I did in another life. I’d been convinced by karma that I was at one time, some where, in another life, a no good bastard whose was still paying for all of his misdeeds.
Now to the present. I still suffer through Christmas but every once in a while I feel a stab of sentimentality. When my better-half runs crazily through the house wearing stupid reindeer antlers or when her kids show up unexpectedly to surprise her with a Christmas visit, I feel the love. This year will be extra special and I’m already feeling the tug on my heart strings for the new grand child. To me Christmas has always been for the young children. Having this new young family member will most certainly keep the true spirit of Christmas alive for us for many years to come.
So to you all, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a great big BAH HUMBUG from me.
Well, today’s the big day. We’ll be on the road to Maryland in just a few minutes. I’ll be posting today and tomorrows entries now since I won’t be able to blog while traveling. I certainly hope that I’m able to do so after my arrival in Maryland and I may finally get a chance to blog with the new IPad. This holiday visit coupled with my better-half’s Mom’s birthday bash will surely jump start the Christmas season for us both.
I’m patiently awaiting the arrival of our house sitters and their dogs. A few further instructions and the house is theirs for a few days. I only hope their dogs don’t piss off my cat too much or he’ll be hell to live with when we return. He not real good about change especially when dogs are involved.
The weather reports are looking good for the trip and the likelihood of snow is slim. I’m also taking a new route to avoid New York City altogether. That will mean more actual driving and less time sitting in those NYC perennial traffic jams.
We should arrive back home late Sunday nite, knock on wood. Have a great weekend and the countdown to Christmas is now eighteen.
As young children our parents made every attempt to make Christmas memorable for my sister and me. When my sister was very young and I was almost six I still firmly believed the tales of Santa and his elves and all that good stuff. But in the back of my young mind I secretly was beginning to have doubts. A lot of what I was being told by the family wasn’t what I was hearing on the street (at school). My friends had almost convinced me that Santa was BS and that my parents were actually the gift givers.
My folks apparently began to suspect I was wavering and that their propaganda was falling on deaf ears. In a conspiracy involving my mother’s sister, Anna Mae, they decided drastic action was needed. I’d been acting out a bit and being a little disrespectful so it was time for Santa to straighten me out.
It was about a week before Christmas and we were visiting at my grandparents home and as usual I was a being a huge pain in the ass like most six year olds. It was just after dark and I was walking through the house to the kitchen. As I passed the window in the hall I glanced over and almost crapped my pants. Santa was standing outside and looking right at me and smiling. I ran upstairs and hid under the bed and refused to come out until the coast was clear. My parents let me know in no uncertain terms that Santa was looking for those children who weren’t being good.
I cleaned up my act fast and became their little angel again. I have to admit I was a little shaky after dark and afraid to look out the windows for quite a while. Santa the terrorist had accomplished his mission. I saw him on two or three other occasions during the next two years, once at our home, and again in the cellar of my grandparents house but unfortunately I was already a confirmed non-believer. I went along with the charade for my sister’s sake and to avoid a smack on the ass if I told her the truth. By then I knew my parents were the ones I needed to suck up to and I did it in grand fashion.
Many years later while I was digging through a trunk in my aunts bedroom I discovered where Santa had been hiding. His retirement consisted of being hidden under a pile of sheets and pillow cases in that old trunk. My aunt laughed like crazy when I confronted her and we both enjoyed the moment very much.
What I never told her or my parents was the lingering collateral damage from their actions. To this day during the Christmas season I’m careful in dark rooms and try never to look out the windows. In the mall or in stores where Santa is holding court, I stay the hell away. That guy still scares the bejesus out of me.
I seem to be stuck in an after Thanksgiving holiday slow-motion this morning. As previously predicted I spent most of yesterday decorating the tree and being a somewhat silent helper to my better-half’s decorating efforts. Drink some wine, nob my head yes, drink some more wine, and nod my head yes again. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. Most of my opinions are those head nods but I’ll stand up and be heard if she does sometime totally tasteless. Of course that never ever happens, honest. I have the blah’s today but this seems to occur every year around this time. I’ll eventually get a little excited about the holidays, but not too much. Christmas ceased being my favorite holiday the first year I got mostly clothes for gifts. It hasn’t felt the same since.
Growing up my folks weren’t well off and money was always an issue but regardless the gifts for us kids were always cool. My first double holstered cap pistols, my first grown up bicycle, and my first chemistry set. One year my Mom painted my bedroom walls with planets and rocket ships because she knew way back then I was destined to be a science-fiction nerd. Just so you know, she was right, I still am. A few years later I got an honest to God set of paints and brushes and made my first Christmas cards. They were highly praised by all of my overly kind and biased relatives. Just so you know, hundreds of paintings, sculptures, collages, and sketches later, I’m still a happily and struggling artist.
It feels awfully good to reminisce and it helps put things back into their proper perspective as Christmas approaches. I’d like to chat further but I just heard a very loud crash from outside. It appears some NASCAR wannabe hit a sheet of ice on the road and is now sitting quietly in his car sitting in the woods across the road from my house. He appears uninjured but I’d better check. HO! HO! HO!
After yesterdays rant I found myself feeling somewhat better about the upcoming holidays. Now for the next week we will be preparing for our trip to Maryland. It’s going to be a long week because we’re already fighting and arguing with each other over preparations.
Part of those preparations include topping off the home heating oil tank so we don’t run out of fuel while we’re away. We had the tank filled up today and what a bargain, only five hundred and fifty dollars to keep the house at an uncomfortably cold sixty-two degrees until late January. I guess I shouldn’t complain because last winter we maintained the house in the range of 55-65 degrees for the entire season and let me tell you a little secret. It’s really hard to get a good nights sleep when your wearing long johns, socks, a tassel hat, and two layers of clothing. That’s the conundrum, not spending the money you save by keeping the house cooler for extra clothing to keep your body warmer. The bottom line is this, winter is expensive and you can’t avoid paying through the nose for it.
The government energy experts love advising people to use alternative sources of energy. Wood burning, solar power, and wind power are their favorites. After doing my research I come to find out it pretty much is a huge load of manure. To equip my home with just a basic solar system would cost ten to twenty thousand dollars. If I saved just $20.00 a month based on a fifteen thousand dollar expenditure it would require 62.5 years to recoup my money. What a deal. Pellet stoves are cheaper but not by much. If I wanted wind power it could cost in the area of four thousand dollars and would give me the ability to light a limited number of lights in a few rooms of my home. So much for the alternative energy sources. They may become economical at some time in the future but unfortunately I’ll probably be dead for twenty years.
I’m leaving in a few minutes to visit the local tire store for maintenance on my vehicle before the trip. I been having issues with a slow leak that’s been driving me crazy for over a month. Hopefully it won’t cost me an arm and a leg for repairs but as always expect the worst and when it doesn’t happen, celebrate.
I also need to do a little shopping for clothes that pass my better-half’s inspection. I wouldn’t want to show up at any gathering with her family looking like my normal self. I’ve been told to clean up my act, cut my hair, shave my face, and scrub my filthy body. I’m not only required to look good but to smell good as well. I won’t be permitted to make the trip if I have one freaking hair out of place. This get together is just going to be “the cats ass”. Deck the effing halls!
Thanksgiving has come and gone for another year but for a change I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Since I’m not a religious person the holidays of Christmas and Easter don’t get me all that excited. I participate in the activities but only because I care for the family members who go dog-shit crazy over them. New Years was a great holiday when I was younger when drinking and carousing were the rule of the day but that ended a while back.
The Fall of the year is my favorite season. It’s that old harvest time mindset in Maine that really attracts me. Every weekend from Labor Day until Thanksgiving will find people at Town Fairs, Farm Shows, and festivals of all kinds. Home made foods, home made gifts, and farm animals are the order of the day. It’s still a place where many Maine families carry on the tradition of visiting one of our local tree farms for picking out the family Christmas tree. It’s even cooler when you’ve had a fresh snow fall and you get to walk out in the woods with a saw in one hand and your kid hanging onto the other. It just makes the seasons feel more meaningful and it gives those kids a life-long memory to enjoy.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have attended many family Thanksgiving gatherings with my family and the families of others. That’s really what makes Thanksgiving mean more to me than any of the other holidays. It’s the tradition of the day more than the food that makes it extra special. The fact that the Pilgrims created the first Thanksgiving is nice but so what. What’s important to me is the family members making the effort to be together and be thankful for the things and people in their lives. Our celebration this year was a small intimate family group with the new grandson enjoying his first Thanksgiving. He was the lucky one who didn’t overeat and got to sleep through the meal. The food was great and the company was too. I was in charge of the bird this year and (patting myself on the back) it was delicious. That bird made the ultimate sacrifice and we all appreciated it. I’ll appreciate it again over the next month or two when we can snack on those homemade pot pies he’s going to be a part of. Yummmm!
I hope all of you enjoyed the day and your time with your families. We’ve lost a few family members this year and have welcomed a new arrival as well. Keep them all in your thoughts.
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